White House Gets Petition from 500,000 Americans Asking for Rescue of European Jews

August 30, 1944

WASHINGTON (Aug. 29)

A petition signed by 500,000 American citizens of every creed and extraction urging the establishment of a special intergovernmental committee to rescue Jews from occupied Europe was presented today at the White House to General Edwin Martin Watson, secretary to President Roosevelt, by a delegation of Jewish and Christian religious leaders. The petition also asked for admittance of refugees to Palestine.

Earlier, the delegation, headed by Rabbi Elieser Silver, president of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Archbishop Athenagoras of the Greek Orthodox Church called at the British Embassy and were received by Mr. John Russell, Embassy secretary.

After a brief meeting with the majority and minority leaders of both Houses of Congress in the office of Rep. John McCormack, Mass. Democrat, the delegation held a ceremony on the steps of the Capitol in which the petition was given to the Congressional leaders. The demonstration was planned by the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe.